They are fucking dreaming if they think that this shit will hold. There is an imperative for the commons to be informed of the specifics of any proposed tampering with common resources like the water table, and a right to object.

Apparently the greatest concentration of fracking sites in the US (possibly the world) is in south-western Weld County in Colorado. Which is where I live. From my house I can see perhaps a dozen of these drilling sites. It's always seemed bizarre to me that it's even legal to push chemicals into the ground under and around my house -- but apparently it is, because around here very few people own the mineral rights associated with the ground on which their house stands.

But then, it's also illegal for me to capture rainwater, which seems at least equally strange.

Because the water from precipitation is so low in Colorado and we're in a semi-arid climate, there's a lot of concern for the watershed and depriving the people downstream of water. Rainbarrels are technically illegal because that moisture is needed to maintain the natural flow of streams - damming, controlling, or restricting its natural flow can cause problems further down the line, or so it's proposed. But it's scarce enough on a climate level that even the rain is considered necessary.

Downstream is a key component. We get rain / melt-off that is used by farmers and cities in other states as well. Water in the west is a precious thing and "ownership" of it is order dependent. Someone owns the first drop of water flowing in the river, and someone else own X gallons / time period only if there's enough left over them after the senior stakeholders are accounted for. Those rights don't care if you are upstream or downstream, but on seniority.

With the possibility of water intensive shale oil extraction, oil companies have been buying senior water rights in Colorado for some time and then leasing them back to farmers / etc. If shale oil happens seriously, and needs the water that's predicted, things could get ugly in a hurry.

What the Hell do people think someone capturing rainwater for personal use is doing? He's intercepting a tiny amount of water on its way into the water table, and then pissing it back out into a septic system where the only possible place it could end up is back in the water table. I'm assuming we're talking about rural or semi rural areas here, where the impact is going to be infinitesimal.

Agribusiness using huge quantities of rainwater could be a different story, but even here it either ends up back in th

Re (1): in the steady state long term, just what do you think he is going to do with the water where it can end up any other place than either back in the groundwater, or back in the atmosphere ready to make more rain?

And this is why we need government, and why we need government regulation. In that bizarre fantasy world that the Libertarian true believers inhabit, we can let the free market take care of everything. The reality is that corporations will risk people's health, risk people's property, and risk people's lives in order to make a profit. We saw this with the Deepwater Horizon drill rig, where BP took shortcuts that killed workers, led to a disastrous oil spill, and shut down offshore oil exploration. We saw this in West Virginia, when a mine owner cut corners on safety, leading to an explosion that killed 29 people. We saw this with the paint industry, which continued to put toxic amounts of lead in paint long after this was known to be a major health risk. And we saw this with Wall Street, which gambled with billions of dollars of borrowed money, causing a financial panic that sent the economy into a recession.

Government regulation can get out of hand. But if you just let corporations police themselves and expect the market to solve everything, then what you get is the situation in China: poison in baby formula, lead paint in children's toys, toxins in the toothpaste. Of course, if even a fraction of the health concerns raised about fracking are true, we may be closer to that situation than we'd like to think.

Bullshit. In a Libertarian world, I could sue the fuckers for polluting the water table. Now they have license thanks to government regulation and are shielded from liability.

Wow....talk about backwards logic: The halliburton loophole was NOT a regulation, but an exemption from an existing regulation. The existing regulation was good, and the halliburton loophole did away with it in this case...never mind the notion that the ability to sue is somehow better than preventing the pollution in the first place(??).

And they could go to the court with 10000x the amount of lawyer time than you could afford.

Do all libertarians actually believe there's a cosmically enforced good/evil balance, that the little guy actually can take down the big evil groups if not for the government holding them back, and that certain metals have a universally recognized value? Or is it just the ones I've encountered?

And the law is so complex that having 1000x the lawyering is an advantage, because...?

Look, if we're going to assume a libertopia hypothetical, assume it all the way.

Actually, the more educated libertarians (not the internet nut/strawmen type) do have better (or at least more developed) solutions to this problem then "take them to court in this system that is completely rigged in favor of the big companies." Mostly involving more highly developed property rights and protections. But it's a bit long to go into in slashdot comment.

It's fairly frustrating. Most of my political conversations, if I want to defend my point at all, risk turning into a lengthy lecture on libertarian theory. Because there *is* more to it than just "government bad", but if you haven't read the economic arguments it doesn't really work...

So, all the things you described happened without a government regulating stuff? And wouln't it be better if you could just, say shoot them in the head, when something like this threatens you, your safety or your family safety?
The billions gambled in Wall Street were backed by the government. In fact, the government you praise bail them out. How many arrests were made in the recent Wall Street scandals? The examples you mentioned from China were handled swiftly and severely - those responsible for milk co

The billions gambled in Wall Street were backed by the government. In fact, the government you praise bail them out. How many arrests were made in the recent Wall Street scandals?

The government deregulated Wall Street, this is the problem. I don't think anyone is praising the way any of that was (is being) handled. None of that is going to change as long as Corporations can donate unlimited money anonymously to political campaigns.

Aren't fracking companies still exempt from this kind of disclosure under the Energy Policy Act of 2005 [wikipedia.org]? In other words, isn't any disclosure by the fracking companies purely voluntary, since the state legislation is rendered moot by the federal legislation?

I know there are several states passing legislation like Colorado's, but if I understand correctly, the legislation seems to be basically for show, since the states are really powerless to enforce disclosure of their flacking fluids.

They're exempt from the normal federal reporting requirements such as those stipulated in the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. They are not exempted from state regulations, which is why states are drafting legislation of this type. Typically any entity (person or corporation) has to comply with the regulations of all jurisdictions that apply (city, county, state, and federal for the US).

Now, the company might be able to argue the production of the natural gas is "interstate commerce" and therefore the fe

Expect most news sources to continue to spout "the debate over fracking is likely to continue" B.S. until there is high test coming out of your ice maker. We already saw this go down with global warming: The energy companies deny everything and make the problem as bad as they can until there is irrefutable proof that the problem exists.

Once the studies are done and the problem is confirmed to exist, they continue to make it worse (to their profit) while arguing that there is no proof that the problem is caused by them.

The next step, once there is evidence that they are at fault, is to say that cleaning up after themselves is impossible. This will take a third round of studies to prove that cleanup is possible.

If the offending parties face any punishment, it will be a fine that is insignificant next to the profits they've made by pissing in the community pool.

The water tap this movie shows being lit on fire had this phenomenon BEFORE the fracking began. When confronted about this during an interview, the creator of the film refused to discuss it. A water well like this is sometimes called a hissing well is a natural occurance. Enjoy being duped!

Because that movie sure PROVES that the phracking caused the phenomenon in the water supples.

NOT.

What I saw was a series of anecdotes with some supporting science, but predominantly just a lot of OMG speculation. Sure, it was very disturbing, and merits scientific investigation. This regulation will help that investigation.

What's there to worry about? In a few years groundwater will be rendered toxic and everybody can move somewhere else on the Federal government's dime. It really has evolved into a "oil at all costs" situation.

Hyrdrofracking for gas is an extremely recent development - at least in the form currently used. It was not legally possible to use the current methods of hydrofracking until the Halliburton Loophole exemptions to the Clean Water Act were pased as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

Exactly...though that hasn't stopped the likes of T. Boone Pickens from claiming that it's totally safe and has been going on for "60 years".
Sometimes I think the gas industries long term plans must include selling drinking water, as it may eventually be worth more than oil/gas.

What impresses me is that some exemption ever did make it perfectly legal to pump shit into the water table without any specific disclosure, let alone the necessity for any approval supported by science.

I am in my late 30's and grew up hearing the term fracking, because my dad worked in the natural gas business. My uncle ran a workover rig and did frack jobs when I was a kid. So, pumping liquids deep in the ground to cause fissures in the rocks holding the gas pockets has been around for a long long time. Back then it was mostly done to older wells to get them to produce more, and today it is done more often on the front end to reduce the risks associated with re-entering existinig wells.

If you are saying that the technology has developed over the decades and the chemical mix or the exact process has developed then sure. But to say it didnt exist is like saying that because the processor in my PC is faster now that PCs didnt exist before now.

Based on the people I have talked to who have been doing this for decades the percentages of chemicals used has been reduced over the years in favor of a higher percentage of water. So, if what you are saying is they used to pump all kinds of stuff deep in the ground, and now the process is mostly water - then I agree.

There is so much FUD surrounding this issue, and it is obscuring what the real concerns should be. Are there risks associated with gas and oil exploration - yes there are many. Should there be regulations on these industries - no doubt. Do we need to continue to evaluate these regulations and the safety measures as the drilling technologies and the saftey technologies develop - for sure. Are the general public and most news reporters capable of understanding and evaluating the risks vs. the amount of regulations and safety requirements - not from what I can tell.

The saudis tried this techniqe in the 90's and fucked a huge oilfield to the point where they collapsed hundreds of square miles of rock formation, such that they can not extract the oil. Gas is a different story.

Well, it's one thing to have your customers voluntarily ingest a "secret sauce" product, and another one entirely to force everyone nearby to. So chalk it up to shades of gray. Though with the general level of rampant stupidity among the consuming public, one could build a case that volunteerism shouldn't exempt the formar case, either.

Frankly, imposing almost-certainly-negative externalities on unconsenting bystanders' persons and property during the course of your business makes you the ethical equivalent of a serial mugger. It is a pity that it doesn't make you the legal equivalent of one.

That's what I've never understood about the notion that these sorts of environmental regulations are 'anti-freedom' or 'anti-free-market'... Effectively, emitting pollutants that leave your property(as they almost always have a nasty tendency to do...) is some combination of assault and destruction of property, depending on exactly how much damage to other people's health and damage to other people's property you cause. That would seem to bring you trivially under the police power of the state to protect its citizens from violence against them by others.

Failure to protect the people from pollution involuntarily forced on them seems different only in degree from failing to prosecute poisoners or fly-tippers. Also arguably, environmental regulations that allow some harmful levels of pollution are actually more statist; because they assert the state's right to submit everyone to damage to the benefit of specific parties(almost exactly the same thing as the almost universally reviled Kelo v. City of New London decision: The state asserting its right to involuntarily transfer part of the property of everybody to the polluter for 'economic development' purposes). The only real areas of economic regulation that would seem to be purely 'environmentalist' in motivation, as opposed to a downright libertarian exercise of the state's right and duty to protect its citizens from violence, force, and fraud, would be those that govern pollution affecting only the polluter and those who have given informed consent to the pollution(employees accepting high risk for higher pay, say, with knowledge of that risk) and those that protect species and wetlands and things in themselves even when they are fully encompassed within a single chunk of property.

Politically, it isn't exactly a surprise that "libertarian" and "environmentalist" usually don't get along all that well; but ideologically, I've always been fascinated by how immediate, direct, property crimes for profit have no friends at all, and we can't seem to hang the perps high enough for anybody's satisfaction; but covert, indirect, property crimes for profit are eminently respectable, and have friends in all the most desirable places...
(As for the case of the 'secret sauce' product, it seems like it would depend on exactly why the sauce is secret: if, as is common at the experimental edges of medicine, nobody knows exactly what the sauce will do, it would seem to be the right of a competent adult to take risk upon themselves. If the sauce is secret because I'm just not telling you what it is, it becomes much harder to argue that we have actually achieved a genuine consent in the contractual sense, since I'm deliberately keeping you in a state shy of 'informed consent' for my own convenience.)

Frankly, imposing almost-certainly-negative externalities on unconsenting bystanders' persons and property during the course of your business makes you the ethical equivalent of a serial mugger. It is a pity that it doesn't make you the legal equivalent of one.

Too many people (and thus the companies they own) are all too happy to let other people suffer or die if it helps them make a buck.

They used to offshore the death and misery so we wouldn't have to see it, but we don't matter anymore either.

Which is why I had have a special legalized exemption system that amounted to "Sure, you can pump this awful chemical into the air/water/ground but if we trace so much as one person's death to your conduct, we take your entire board and senior management out back of the court house and beat them to death with bricks."

Just because it isn't new doesn't mean it can't be dangerous. sheesh.
Vehicles didn't cause air pollution in Los Angeles until there were a million of them.
Infecting the Ogallala reservoir with 10ccs of anything except plutonium isn't going to poison that many people. But dumping in ten million gallos of almost anything will affect the water.
It isn't the use of any resource that causes issues; it is only the overuse (by definition).

Just to be fair, the ground water we use for drinking is generally at a might higher elevation than the level at which fracking occurs. However, any fissures in the rock between the two will cause contamination. And that is something the frackers can never protect against since they have no idea where those fissures occur.

Hopefully, this will also push for substitutions using less-toxic fracking fluid components, even if some of these components may be higher cost.

For instance (pulling hypothetical example out of my butt, no personal expertise in fracking fluid chemistry) a mineral-oil based carrier vs. a diesel-fuel carrier. I mean, the mechanical properties of the fracking fluid seem like the most important, right? So there should be some fungibility regarding exact chemistry used.

For instance (pulling hypothetical example out of my butt, no personal expertise in fracking fluid chemistry) a mineral-oil based carrier vs. a diesel-fuel carrier. I mean, the mechanical properties of the fracking fluid seem like the most important, right?

A step in the right direction but not adequate. I we had adequate laws in place already, BP's Gulf disaster, and others like it*, would be far less frequent and less disastrous. In short, this ain't enough to keep your groundwater from igniting. It's just going to cost corporations a little more money to keep doing what they're already doing. The only real answer here is to cull the demand if what your after is environmental conservation. Expect egregious and negligent violations whenever money and energy a

My sister owns a water quality lab in Montana. Every town is required to test their water supply regularly for biological and chemical contaminants and for years they have submitted their samples via regular mail to labs like my sister's for testing. Except that the EPA has shortened the window for getting your samples in to a lab from 48 hours to 30 hours, which the Post Office cannot manage with current levels of service. UPS and FedEx don't serve many rural areas, so there is no way for many towns to test their water any more. Add in large, imminent cutbacks at the USPS, and you have a looming public health crisis as it is.

Now with the advent of fracking in the state there is a real possibility thousands of people will be poisoned by ground water contamination, but thanks to the breakdown in the testing it won't be discovered until it's far too late.

Winning more natural gas is a plus for energy independence, but if we're doing that at the cost of putting benzene into our drinking water then perhaps we need to look at other ways to generate power.

If natural gas replaces a significant amount of electricity generation and vehicle power (electric or compressed gas), the US carbon growth could slow down considerably. NG combustion emits about half the CO2 of petroleum or coal per BTU. The difference here is this is motivation by corporate profit rather than government subsidy.

One caveat is that methane is a significant greenhouse gas - 20x stronger by quantity than CO2. So any significant leakage in the system would negate its environmental advanta

Fracking occur in 2 stages. In the First Stage, a series of pumping trucks are lined up and push a goopy gel into the ground, who's whole purpose is to carry grains of sand deep into the fractures created by the overpressure. The exact composition of this snot-like mixture is considered a trade secret, because of its ability to perform in stage two.

In the Second Stage, a "breaker fluid" is pumped into the well, which is supposed to instantly liquify the goop and allow it to flow out, leaving the sand grains to prop open the cracks. Opinions vary on how well this process works; I worked on the oil company side, so I can tell you, it doesn't always work. Sometimes your well is gummed up with snot, especially if they don't pump the breaker long enough.

Both the propellant and the breaker are trade secret compositions, but both probably have some interesting chemical comps.

The irony here is that an old friend of mine said that after a frack job ruined a very lucrative well, he started insisting that water and sand be the only fluids used in his frack jobs. He said the pumping companies pitched a fit, but he got some of the best, most improved fractures of his career using sand and water.

Irrelevant i any case, there is no evidence fracking impacts any water supply.

That's as asinine as saying that drilling for oil does not impact the environment. There is always an impact. If done right, the effects should be minimal; however, in the rush to exploit fracking, the impacts (especially the long term ones) are not being studied and simply won't be known. Disclosing what companies put into the ground is a good start.

Evidence? Anyone who has spent 10 minutes caring about this issue knows there are significant differences. Let me save you a few keystrokes on Google and start with much deeper wells, moving from vertical wells to horizontal ones, and greatly increasing the amount of fluids used and waste generated.

Irrelevant i any case, there is no evidence fracking impacts any water supply.

You're a bit behind the times I'm afraid. Again, let me save [usatoday.com] you [cnn.com] a trip [bloomberg.com] to Google:

This information might have been out there for you years ago had Cheney not inserted his Haliburton exemption in his energy bill back in 2005.

Alternative explanations were carefully considered to explain individual sets of data. However, when consideredtogether with other lines of evidence, the data indicates likely impact to ground water that can be explained byhydraulic fracturing.

Even if you consider all the contamination testimonies and reports garbage, there is no evidence fracking doesn't impact any water supply, and in fact companies go to great lengths to keep the sludge ingredient list a secret, so you don't know if they're pollutants or hazardous water-solutable chemicals or not.

That is one of the most frivolous and cavalier points I have ever heard in my life. If a fracker pumps toxic shit into the ground, it is completely up to him to demonstrate and guarantee that no harm can come to the water supply. If the ground water is currently in use, he should have to post a bond for possible damages if he turns out to be... oops... wrong. He should have to pay for meticulous monitoring at all points of use. If the ground water is n

When you're right, you're right. In 2005 the House was Republican controlled, the Senate was Republican controlled, the White House was Republican controlled and virtually nothing good got done, but here is a fine example of one very great evil getting done.

I'm a painter from the 1940s that has been using lead paint for 30 years. My resume includes several hundred houses painted without anybody getting sick. People act like this is a new phenomenon - lead paint has been around since WW1. Paint is using lead that his been around for millions of years. Seriously - what are the chances that of this paint crumbling up and being inhaled?

The ONLY time "lead" can pose a hazard to people is when you eat it. If you have small children, some paint chips may get eat

Read the recently released EPA report, or at least reporting on it [arstechnica.com]. Wells which had been pure for years have suddenly had massive influxes of hydrocarbons which cannot be explained by bacteria means. Chemicals used in fracking are also showing up in these drinking wells in significant quantities, with no other plausible source. Fracking is polluting our water table and should be stopped immediately.

Oh, I see. So intervening fissures in the rock between the fracking site and the ground water above simply cannot exist because we've been fracking since WWII. Solid rock sometimes isn't as solid as you think.

I don't think anyone is saying it's new. I think it's just getting a lot more attention now because of the new natural gas "gold rush" in the U.S. A lot more people are seeing these drilling operations out their windows these days, and becoming concerned (especially if they're suddenly able to light their well water on fire).

Hydraulic fracturing for stimulation of oil and natural gas wells was first used in the United States in 1947.[2][3] It was first used commercially by Halliburton in 1949,[2] and because of its success in increasing production from oil wells was quickly adopted, and is now used worldwide in tens of thousands of oil and natural gas wells annually. The first industrial use of hydraulic fracturing was as early as 1903, according to T.L. Watson.[4] Before that date, hydraulic fracturing was used at Mt. Airy Quarry, near Mt Airy, North Carolina where it was (and still is) used to separate granite blocks from bedrock.

With the explosive growth of natural gas wells in the US, researcher Valerie Brown predicted in 2007 that "public exposure to the many chemicals involved in energy development is expected to increase over the next few years, with uncertain consequences."[24] As development of natural gas wells in the U.S. since the year 2000 has increased, so too have claims by private well owners of water contamination. This has prompted EPA and others to re-visit the topic.

I don't think anybody is saying that it's "suddenly" causing problems. It seems like the concern is the growth. As much as I dislike using a car analogy, I think if we hadn't have chosen automobiles as our primary form of transportation, we wouldn't have emission standards and the like, because what makes it an issu

Here's some actual sarcasm (the story about the kitten is an actual claim I've heard made): Nice source. The document you point to is entitled "Horizontal Fracking - Unacceptable Risks" and its thesis is "Do we really want this in Michigan???" Yes, with three question marks. This is not a scientific journal. But, let's continue our research and find out whether the claim is valid.

Taking the one item from the list you pointed to, I find propublica.org, which is a website whose first-listed "major projec

No they intentionally drilled to the same depth as fracking operations in order to determine the extent of horizontal transfer of fracking fluids and how much fluid was left after being pumped out. This was in addition to testing at normal water well depth. Their paper lists as a regret that they were not able to drill to intermediate depths to better understand how the fluids are moving.

The majority of Encana "refutations" are pure bullshit, and the few minor issues that aren't are mentioned in the EPA report as limitations of the current study. In particular the EPA report does compare the current water well against historical values, contrary to that propaganda piece you linked.